Conventionally, a banknote handling machine, which can sort the banknotes deposited from a customer, for each denomination thereof, and then store them therein, has been known. In such a banknote handling machine, upon the deposition of the banknotes into the machine, the banknotes are first received in a hopper. Then, the banknotes received in the hopper in a stacked condition are fed to the interior of the banknote handling machine, one by one. In this case, if the banknotes received in the hopper are folded and creased, some problems, such as a jam or the like, are likely to occur, when such banknotes are fed into the banknote handling machine. Thus, in order to prevent the banknotes from being folded, a banknote holding apparatus is used for holding, from above, the banknote present at the highest layer of a batch of the banknotes stored in the hopper (see, e.g., Japanese Utility Model No. 6-1544).
In the conventional banknote holding apparatus as disclosed in the above Japanese Utility Model No. 6-1544 or the like, a banknote holding plate is provided just above a table of the hopper for placing the banknotes thereon. Therefore, when the banknotes are replenished into the hopper, a user of the apparatus can place the banknotes on the table of the hopper only from the front of the apparatus. Accordingly, in such an apparatus, the replenishment work for the banknotes to the hopper may tend to be troublesome. Besides, such a conventional banknote holding plate has been detected at only two points, i.e., an upper limit position of the banknote holding plate (e.g., a waiting position of the banknote holding plate, for the replenishment of the banknotes) and a lower limit position thereof (e.g., a position, in which the last one banknote stored in the hopper is fed out). This makes it difficult to additionally replenish the banknotes into the hopper.
The present invention was made in light of the above problems. Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a paper sheet holding apparatus, which can facilitate the replenishment work for the paper sheets into the paper sheet storage unit, by enabling the replenishment of the paper sheets into the paper sheet storage unit to be performed, not only from the front but also from above, and which can optionally perform the additional replenishment of the paper sheets, by allowing the holding member to be automatically moved to the waiting position, when the amount of the paper sheets stored in the paper sheet storage unit is greater than the preset amount.